A great deal of information in the form of multimedia files, hereinafter referred to as “content” is available over the Internet. Such content may, for example, comprise images, audio or video files, HTML pages, text, or any other appropriate form of information as desired. The content may comprise streamed material, such as streamed audio or video information.
It is often desirable to control access to content, such that, for example, the content cannot be accessed by people younger than a particular age, or in a particular geographical location or otherwise as desired. It is known to provide password-protected Internet sites, where a password must be supplied by the user to access restricted pages of the site. However, in this situation the user must first provide personal details to the Internet site provider in order to be issued with a password, with corresponding privacy concerns. To prevent children obtaining access to websites with adult content, age verification schemes are known whereby a user supplies information, such as credit card information and other personal information if requested, to a third party credential provider. The third party credential provider verifies the information, in particular the age of the user, and issues a password or credential to enable the user to access those websites which recognise the password supplied by the third party. A similar system of providing a credential to authenticate a user's identity to allow the user to access a client system without reference by the client system to the credential provider is known, for example the Kerberos authentication scheme. The credential effectively acts as a password to a site and in the case of commercial or adult verification credentials, the user may be reported back to the third part credential provider for billing purposes.
An aim of the invention is to provide a new or improved method of controlling access to playable content.